I continue to update the Mo Yan information in my earlier post, but a few of the latest post-Nobel reactions are worth mentioning separately, too:
- Benjamin Carlson reports that 'A leaked directive from the Chinese government shows censorship tactics towards dissidents' in the amusing account of how China scrambles to censor novelist Mo Yan's Nobel Prize at GlobalPost
- Tash Aw 'asks whether the writer has pandered to the Chinese regime' in Nobel Prize: was Mo Yan the Communist Party's choice ? in The Telegraph
- Susanne Beyer and Volker Hage have Q & A's with Liao Yiwu and Martin Walser about Mo getting the Nobel in Der Spiegel, and get very, very different responses. Liao says: "To me it is like a slap in the face" (as he maintains: "To me the truth comes first and then the literature" (not a position I would endorse, but then when it gets down to life-and-death matters I suppose might be moved to reconsider)); Liao also said Mo was: "a symbol of the Communist Party of China's culture" when China was guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair a few years ago. Meanwhile, Martin Walser practically falls over himself in his effusive praise of Mo: "It is a good fortune, when you can adore, when you can love, when you can find something so magnificent."
- The Harvard Crimson actually offers an opinion piece -- arguing 'Writer Mo Yan's Nobel Prize in Literature is well-deserved' in Reward Artistic Merit.
(Meanwhile, I continue to be disappointed and shocked by the lack of coverage of Liao Yiwu's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade-speech (see my previous mention).)
- Benjamin Carlson reports that 'A leaked directive from the Chinese government shows censorship tactics towards dissidents' in the amusing account of how China scrambles to censor novelist Mo Yan's Nobel Prize at GlobalPost
- Tash Aw 'asks whether the writer has pandered to the Chinese regime' in Nobel Prize: was Mo Yan the Communist Party's choice ? in The Telegraph
- Susanne Beyer and Volker Hage have Q & A's with Liao Yiwu and Martin Walser about Mo getting the Nobel in Der Spiegel, and get very, very different responses. Liao says: "To me it is like a slap in the face" (as he maintains: "To me the truth comes first and then the literature" (not a position I would endorse, but then when it gets down to life-and-death matters I suppose might be moved to reconsider)); Liao also said Mo was: "a symbol of the Communist Party of China's culture" when China was guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair a few years ago. Meanwhile, Martin Walser practically falls over himself in his effusive praise of Mo: "It is a good fortune, when you can adore, when you can love, when you can find something so magnificent."
- The Harvard Crimson actually offers an opinion piece -- arguing 'Writer Mo Yan's Nobel Prize in Literature is well-deserved' in Reward Artistic Merit.
(Meanwhile, I continue to be disappointed and shocked by the lack of coverage of Liao Yiwu's Peace Prize of the German Book Trade-speech (see my previous mention).)